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Rare Species and Communities

Florida Natural Areas Inventory (FNAI) assists with tracking the occurrences of rare, threatened, endangered and exemplary plants, animals and natural communities, called elements. An element is any exemplary or rare component of the natural environment, such as a species, natural community, bird rookery, spring, sinkhole, cave, or other ecological feature. An element occurrence is a single extant habitat that sustains or otherwise contributes to the survival of a population or a distinct, self-sustaining example of a particular element, such as a plant species. The following links provide access to tools on the FNAI website where you can view a list of elements in your area and read a description of each element (e.g. plant, animal, or natural community).

Vegetation Sampling

Vegetation sampling is the identification and quantification of plant species
and communities. Vegetation sampling is a tool used in environmental assessments
and can inform a myriad of assessment goals including biomass availability,
water quality concerns, management benchmarks, and determining the introduction
and establishment of invasive species. Sampling can be conducted via destructive
or non-destructive methods. Learn more about vegetation sampling from the links and documents listed below.

Birds

Some common birds in this region that you might see include - Great Blue Heron, Cattle Egret, Great Egret, White Ibis, Brown Pelican, Osprey, Wood Stork, Yellow-Crowned Night Heron, Bald Eagles and the threatened Florida Scrub-jay.

More than 50,000 observers participate each year in this all-day census of early-winter bird populations. The results of their efforts are compiled into the longest running database in ornithology, representing over a century of unbroken data on trends of early-winter bird populations across the Americas. Simply put, the Christmas Bird Count, or "CBC", is citizen science in action.

The table below demonstrates the average number of birds seen per hour of effort put forth to view them. The historic average is the average of the total number of birds seen per hour of effort divided by the number of years listed in the brackets.

Species Name

Listing

Myakka Quadrangle

Sarasota Quadrangle

Venice Quadrangle

2011 - 2012 Results

Historic Average

2011 - 2012 Results

Historic Average

2011 - 2012 Results

Historic Average

American Oystercatcher

SSC

0.04

0.04 (1 yrs)

Bald Eagle

T

0.34

0.34 (1 yrs)

Black Skimmer

SSC

0.34

0.34 (1 yrs)

Brown Pelican

SSC

6.58

6.58 (1 yrs)

Florida Scrub-jay

T

Little Blue Heron

SSC

1.42

1.42 (1 yrs)

Peregrine Falcon

T

0.02

0.02 (1 yrs)

Reddish Egret

SSC

0.04

0.04 (1 yrs)

Snowy Plover

T

0.11

0.11 (1 yrs)

Tricolored Heron

SSC

1.1

1.1 (1 yrs)

White Ibis

SSC

10.56

10.56 (1 yrs)

Wood Stork

E

0.9

0.9 (1 yrs)

* Threatened (T), Endangered (E) and Species of Special Concern (SSC) status as listed by the State of Florida.

Florida's Breeding Bird Atlas

This site provides access to the Florida Breeding Bird Atlas data recorded by volunteers from 1986 - 1991. The surveys occurred in all 67 counties which were divided into 1028, 7.5 minutes topographic quadrangles.
Each quadrangle was further divided into 6 (2 wide by 3 tall) equal-sized blocks of about 10 miles2 of which about 75% (4,866) were surveyed. For each species, a breeding code indicating the "highest" breeding evidence was recorded.

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